


dream in impossibility

by hulklinging



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Other, Retelling of Peter's Backstory and The Murderous Mask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 02:25:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13331529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hulklinging/pseuds/hulklinging
Summary: When Peter is very small, Mag takes his name and locks it away.But Juno has a way of finding things, even things he doesn't know he's looking for.





	dream in impossibility

**Author's Note:**

> Someone said fae and I couldn't get this out of my head.
> 
> It's my first fic in this fandom, I love these characters, gosh I hope I do them justice.

When Peter is small, Mag takes his name and locks it away.

"It's safer like this," Mag says. "Rule one is never let anyone know your True name. You never know who might be Fae."

Fae is something from Earth, Peter thinks, although he's not quite sure, and anyways Earth is far away and they have more important things to deal with. Still, pieces of Mag's wisdom lingers. You'll know Fae by they way they move, by how their eyes see right through you, by how with one smile they can make you want to tell them everything. There are more rules too, of course, all treated like they are the most important, as is the older man's way. Don't eat at their table, don't let them touch your bare skin, don't invite them in. Into Peter's pockets he pours salt and iron and secrets, and Peter nods like it all made sense.

And then it is revealed that while Peter armed himself against fantasies, the man he trusted more than anything else in the universe had been the one with the silver tongue all along.

"Don't... Walk away from me!" Peter shouts, and it feels like something rips free in his chest. Mag is rooted to the spot, his eyes wide, like he wants to keep moving but no longer can.

Peter saves the day. Peter kills the man. Peter leaves everything behind him when he runs, and it is only when he has put three planets between himself and any angels that he realizes he never asked where Mag had gone and hidden his name.

It was no matter. He doesn't need it. He's a thief, and thieves travel light. Lugging his true name around would just weigh him down, he tells himself, and replaces it with royalty, plays at being a complete person, grounds himself with things that are real, to remind himself that he is too.

Sometimes, strange things happen, and that thing in his chest feels loose again. And Peter thinks sometimes that if he were just to reach into his ribcage he could pull himself apart and see what is hiding inside, but instead he sprinkles more salt onto a dish and replaces all his knives with iron and he lies and lies and lies until the whispers in his head go away and he's just a thief again, just a human dancing through space and leaving no trace of himself behind him.

When he leaves no footprints, he congratulates himself on just how quick on his feet, how clever he's become. That's all.

Miasma is not her real name, but she doesn't even wait for him to offer one of his. When he sees her out of the corner of his eye, she looks all wrong, like someone who's never seen a human has tried to draw one from memory. But his vision's always been weak, and these glasses don't give him much periphery, and he can't remember when he got so good at lying he started to try and fool himself but that's a problem for later, because right now there's a job and a game and a mask that he needs to deliver.

He slips into the secret agent identity with no problems, because at this point it’s as easy as breathing. Sometimes he catches himself in a reflection and fools even himself - little changes always seem to happen between identities, eyes slightly different shades, smile always a little different. It’s just the makeup, the wardrobe, that’s all.

He avoids reflections now, as he discards one identity and dons another. He doesn’t need a mirror to make sure nothing is out of place, he’s a professional.

But the way Juno Steel looks at him makes him want to double check, just in case. Because when Juno Steel looks at him, he feels laid bare. He is immediately on edge, suddenly sure that Fae must exist, that after all these years he’s finally found one in the strangely alluring lady in front of him. This pull at his ribcage can’t be normal, after all. There has to be something else happening here. Something like magic.

But Juno Steel lies, and the name ‘Steel’ feels a little on the nose. He itches to dig, to see if that really is Juno’s name, but then they’re in the Kanagawa’s mansion and he doesn’t have the time. And once he hears, hears about Juno’s brother, he doesn’t want to know more about him, not unless Juno is the one telling him. It doesn’t seem right, or respectful, to go searching for the story. This conscience is a strange feeling, and Peter feels off balance with it, like his weight has gone and shifted into something unfamiliar. 

He thinks Juno might really be his real name, and his True name besides, but he has no way of actually knowing that, so he leaves that thought where it formed and tries not to let his mind come back to it.

He gets ahead of himself. He loses himself in it all, just a little bit, and when they kiss he lets himself fall right in, up to his knees in something new and terrifying, and his too-clever brain is already imagining what Juno’s eyes will look like lit up by foreign skies when he feels a colder kiss around his wrists.

For all his tricks and all of his stories, he doesn’t think he’s felt this stripped bare before. He’d blame it on the steel (and there’s another joke there, because he doesn’t think he’d mind being trapped by Steel, just not like this) but that would mean admitting something to himself, so that’s just out of the question. Instead, he stares at Juno, and Juno stares back, and he knows Rex’s mask is hanging by little more than a threat of politeness, at this point. 

Peter Nureyev signs the note with his own name. There’s no harm in it, he tells himself. Mag hid it well, Juno won’t even be able to read it. He just didn’t want to lie again, and an unreadable true name is better than a fake one. As soon as Juno is out of sight, he feels his glamour slide back into place, Rex’s smile stretched over Peter’s own too-sharp teeth. He leaves Juno behind, and then he does what he promised he would, leaving the officers on the side of the road as he makes a graceful exit. He’s glad that after everything, the last few things he left Juno with were Truths.

Now, we are at the end of this tale. But here is a question for you, Traveler.

What happens when you hide something in an impossible place?

There are many impossible places in this universe. There are hotels with infinite rooms. There are trains heading everywhere and nowhere. There are little boys with no parents, none at all, boys who never lose those too-sharp teeth and ageless eyes.

Sometimes, the best place to hide an intangible thing is in an untouchable place. And Mag had looked at his boy and knew Peter was not the kind of boy any one person got to keep, that he would always be too big for any planet he set foot on. So he tucked that name into his heart.

Hiding something as powerful as a True Name in a chest is a silly thing. Because the danger is always that someone else might make a matching key.

By the time Peter was leaving Mars, Juno had already forged that key, was already in possession of a heart that cared for a thief with no name. And so when he reads that note, there is no sudden blurring of his eyes, there is no strangely-looping text in a tongue he doesn’t know. There is just those two words, two words that had not known anyone’s eyes since Peter shut Mag’s.

“Peter Nureyev.”

Juno whispers them to himself, runs his fingers over them like he’s brushing off the dust. He knows Peter is gone, but when he lets his lips form the name  _ (Peter Nureyev, Peter Nureyev, Peter Nureyev)  _ he doesn’t feel that far away. Not really.

He knows, somewhere inside him, that Peter will be coming back. Juno has something of his, after all.

Juno folds the note with careful fingers, tucks it away in a pocket of his coat. He’ll keep it safe, until Peter comes to claim it. And if sometimes he imagines it as a physical weight, hidden right over his heart, well that’s something he’ll keep to himself. Just like he doesn’t mention it, that the smell of Peter’s cologne lingers much longer than it should.

There are many impossible things in this universe, after all.


End file.
